I know I’m really bad about updating this site. I really need to get in a better habit of thinking about updates. I’ll talk about school for this year. Ray started 7th grade which is middle school this year. One of the hardest adjustments for everyone was the time of day he has to be up and ready for school. His bus picks him up at 6:20am! I’ve never been a really good early
morning person and Don certainly isn’t one. Middle school has also proven to be a bigger challenge than prior years. The first half of the year was not so difficult, but Ray has been on steroids for over a year and a half now to improve his GI function. The steroids greatly improved his poor protein levels and IgG troughs, but steroids have nasty side effects. He hasn’t grown at all. He’s pretty much the shortest kid in the school even though he’s chunky looking due to the steroids. He’s put on weight which I hope he’ll keep, but turn into height as the steroids are reduced further. But, weaning steroids can cause some serious irritability issues and being a 13 year old comes with irritability issues all on its own. The 2nd half of the year got so much harder for him because of the steroid wean. In addition to making him more irritable, he seems to be more tired. This might be do to lowering protein values as the steroids come down. It also seems to make it harder for him to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. I hope this improves once he’s off the steroids completely, but it’s hard to tell.
Other things about middle school have been good. He’s been in band again, playing percussion and while he balks at practicing enough, he enjoys it when he gets started. He’ll jam and improvise and play along with music he likes in addition to playing the music he’s assigned. Because the school year was so tough, we backed off of piano lessons, but I’m hoping he can do that some over the summer.
He’s enjoyed playing golf and really likes going to Top Golf where his drives are scored electronically. It’s a great treat to get to go spend an afternoon there.
The golf cart is back. It needed new batteries. It takes 6 auto batteries. So, Ray is now riding up and down our private subdivision roads once again. He’s quite good at driving it. The cart went with us to Cue Camp last fall. It was a big help getting around the camp for a number of us. It made things much better for the folks who had to deliver drinks and snack to the conference room and class rooms.